DA Fan gives TW3 a shot: Text Based Let's Play

Haha, you almost quoted Letho the kingslayer if he survives TW2 and helps at Kaer Morhen. 

Roche will go "What is this whoreson doing here?" and Letho will reply "Eredin is a king, is he not..."

Gasp Phillipa. Cutting your hand to open a door. Anders wouldn't approve.

Or templars!

That final sword battle was epic! Clanging steel and sparks! and vitality Quen sign to the rescue the whole way.

I bawled like a whiny baby when Ciri made her sacrifice.

I was like, "Whyyyyy, I failed! I failed! I killed everyone! I hate this game!"

Then went to go meet Yennifer at the inn. Hoping. Hoping they were pulling the slow trick.

And I smiled when I finally saw Ciri and knew I hadn't fucked it up after all.

Such relief.

Occupied Temeria didn't seem so sad about the outcome. They were just glad the war was over. So even though I feel like a dirty hypocrite for killing Radovid... Seemed okay in the end.

And Yennifer and Geralt retired to the country side to live a boring immortal life for a while.-- when Geralt wasn't out Witchering with Ciri.

That game! Oh my gosh!

I'm tired. Will have to give the a review after a good sleep.

Ciri at the end says:
"They all just want to use me, my father, the lodge of Sorceress', even Yennefer."
And Geralt says, and Avallach.
Ciri says, Avallach is different, he would always give me a choice.
I thought what! He imprisoned you and forced you to have sex with your Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather!
And Ciri seems to trust Avallach more than Geralt?

While reading the books gives you a better understanding of the game, I really don't think you would like them.

The incest with Emhyr is not obvious in the game, but it is still there.
The reason those Nobles pulled their funding in the game, and are conspiring to overthrow Emhyr is because he married Cirilla instead of their daughters, princess' from the south.
The world doesn't think Ciri is his daughter, they think she is his wife.
Although he never had the real Ciri at the time and married a lookalike.
In witcher 2 you can eaves drop on them talking with Roche about it.
It is also the reason Emhyr orders everyone out of the room in Vizima before talking to Geralt.


The book has some very dark shit.
A sadistic bounty hunter named Leo Bonhart really abuses Ciri beats her and forces her to fight to the death in the arena.
When Ciri tries to save her lover Mistle, He beats her, strips her naked in front of the whole town and ties her to a pole, then gets a local townsman to hold her head still and her eyes open and forces her to watch him cut the girls head off with a meat saw.
Now the game doesn't mention this, but it still happened because that's how she got her sword Zireael.
And she got that scar on her face from Stefan Skellen while escaping Bonhart.

And I won't go into what Vilgefortz had planned for Ciri.

Equally sickening is when Geralt saves the young crim Angouleme from the gallows, she tells of her childhood, she was living with her aunt, but when the war came and food was scarce the aunt sent her to the orphanage run by the Priests, but she wasn't very popular there because she was already 15 and the pedophiles that the Priests pimped the kids to only wanted young children.
So while they were strapping a young kid down to the bench for them, She killed the perverts and the Priests with a sharpened kitchen knife.
Then she offers herself to Geralt for saving her.

There was a poster many pages back that thought this thread absurd, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^^

ME: I'm trying! I posted a mod question in my thread and I made a Mass Effect 2 Folder and I started an Imgur Account. Not that I plan on tons of pictures, but I want to try that image hoster anyway as well as keep my DA pics and ME pics seperate.

Well, that person is just no fun then   I thoroughly enjoyed this thread, even though you didn't end up liking Yen. Your reactions were a lot of fun to read.

Did you get an answer to your mod question? Or was it about using controllers?

Also, since you're starting with ME2, do you want a fairly general tip that I wish I'd had for my playthrough? Or are you going to play blind and then do a "perfect" worldstate later (which is what I've decided to do)?

dragontartare

General tip is nice. Like, I appreciated the "Supoort Ciri's independence and be nice to her" tip, because if Ciri had died, I would have not played this game ever again.

slimgrin

True enough. I'm a big fan of DA, so if someone did a Text Only Let's Play of the Dragon Age Trilogy on the DA forum, I would read them all and live through their reactions vicariously. But I'm a weird cat that way. I hardly expected much of any reaction to this thread but receiving the attention I did really made it a good play for me. Without it, I may have given up after the Baron hung himself.

But all in all, it was a bit "for science" so I could get a first person account of the game for conversation with others in the DA vs TW3 conversations I've run into. I'm not actually much of a gamer in that I don't have an interest in other games outside of Dragon Age.

Review/Impression:
Apologies for my scattered review. I don't know if the things I mention really fall in these categoiries officially, and I made up some of my own.

Graphics: A+ Excellent-- Wind, clouds, stars, shooting stars, weather, night/day cycle = beautiful sunrises and sunsets which connects to the everchanging lighting on faces, excellent. Kinda fail at lightning (it seriously looks 'drawn on')

Animation: A. don't know why video game hands holding things are so bad. They were bad in DAI as well. And hair doesn't actually move that much unless there is an actual wind- they got a bit carried away with this mechanic (although appreciate having it! Painted hair is a fail, DAI!). I also got...tired of rain. LOL. and sometimes the change from sun shine to rain was VERY abrupt. I had some glitching where people flew across the room instead of walking at the end stuff. Swimming (yay) was good. Climbing (yay) was good! Witcher Senses could ne annoying. but I prefer them to the golden pinging of DAI.

Music: A+ I liked the music, especially Skellige, but what I MOST appreciated was the little ditties from random NPCs and even Geralt. There were ryhmes. There were haunting recounts of myths. There were prayers. There were gross drinking songs. It was the latter that added so much... ALIVEness to the game for me. MEmorable mentions to Godling Johnny and the Rock Troll on the island.

Cinematics: A Saving the killing blows of major bosses for cinematic finishes was a great choice (they did this with Corypheus in DAI, technically.). And even the glory kills could be quite interesting but find beheadings and straight up cutting in half to be unlikely. Memorable mention to the WErewolf I cured and then murdered for being evil- he was in flames AND I sunk my sword to the hilt in it. I liked the taking of trophy's cinematic, although that Griffon head had to have been reeking pretty bad by end game and Geralt, even with his sensitive nose,never mentioned it. Meditation was great as a way to sit and do things. Like when I RPed the grief over Kiera's death. The fact that I could kneel made that better.

Story: I'm not entrenched in tale of Geralt enough to debate facts or find the story plot holes. So, my impression is that there are no plot holes.   I am a bit confused about some information, but I read only 5% of all "books/codexes" so that's to be expected. The parts up to and including the conclusion of the Baron were Great, from a gaming standpoint. Skellige was great. The part between the Baron and Skellige was not enjoyable for me- Essentially, I found Novigrad to be too busy and boring and the atmosphere was a downer.  Which I find amusing, because everyone was like, "It get's better at Novigrad" and then I found it to be kinda lame and full of busy work. The only part of Novigrad I enjoyed was everything to do with Triss and her Mage underground storyline. And another splash of interest was the Play to find Dudu. The Baron quest line was my lowest low, the Skellige QuestLine was my highest high. And I was too on edge about possibly killing Ciri at the end of the game to consider it my highest high, so I'll call it "satisfying in near every way."

Content: I think this game took me somewhere between 75-100. I wasn't counting and the save file doesn't have a time passed stamp. And I skipped nearly all witcher contracts, ALL Gwent games, Most of the Brawling. I possibly did all of the horse racing. The main story arch was great, the side quests were great, even the Witcher Contracts I did do were interesting.  The fetch quests for Dandelion were YAWN. Really? You can't make collecting placards interesting, even if you involve some fights. The mini games inside games (the horse racing, the brawling, and Gwent) were 99% optional, which is exactly how I like them. Except for that one time where Zoltan needed a Gwent card and literally some NPCs life was on the line. Failing that ticked me off. MASSIVE WORLD FULL OF STUFF. It's huge, it's big, I don't even know how you could go everywhere without spending like, 50 extra hours just doing that. As an aside, in spite of all the stuff, it was amusing to see where it repeated interiors. AND, by the way, had locked doors you could never open in walls that didn't have anything beyond.  People burned DA2 to cinders over that, so I find it amusing that no one has brought it up regarding TW3.

Connected to content is Romances and Companions

Romances: In Dragon Age you can romance all simulataneously and make your choice after flirting with both. I chose Yenn because I'd already denied Triss. That kinda sucks. Also, NO REPEATABLE KISS SCENES. The only thing that came close with Yenn is a repeatable question asking about the Djinn got her to get in my face and give me a smoldering look. But it made no sense to ask that question over and over again. Also, BOTH her sex scenes were weird. And BOTH were implied quickies? They always had to "get back to-" something. She is also... I guess, sort of real. She's so cold sometimes, so controlled. She did things I respected and things I disapproved of a lot. Like torturing the dead guy for info. Her talking to Geralt was most often left to non cinematics. Like the boat ride looking for the Djinn we had this whole relationship conversation that wasn't even face to face.  And when I got back to Kaer Morhen, She kissed me all dramatic in welcome-- but it was right in front of Triss, which made me question the sincerity of the kiss. Seemed like she was just being mean to Triss. In Triss's case, there was a non committal kiss before you could confirm the relationship. with Yenn, there was non committal sex? *shrugs* this style of romance writing and focus does not appeal to me whatsoever.

Companions: The number of times I rode all the way to Dandelion's inn only to be hit with disappointment that we couldn't have a conversation about what I was up to or what they were up to... a slap in the face every time. "WAKE UP, this ISN'T DRAGON AGE, IDIOT." I think in the case of Zoltan and Dandelion, they counted a lot on you having known them from the other two games.  Same for Roche and Sigi.
I got more connected to the Baron, Kiera, and the other Witchers than I ever got to those two.

Following up on minor characters- carrying through: This was a pleasant surprise. The world changed, better or worse. Memorable mention to the Dwarf of White Orchard, and the Dwarves from the Isle of Mysts who stole my boat.

A+ for engaging content nearly all the way through.
D for romances.
C+ for companions.

Freedom to RP: D. The only thing I can compare Geralt to is Sarcastic Hawke vs Aggressive Hawke. Will Geralt be an asshole? Or less of an asshole? But there was rarely an opportunity to be diplomatic. On top of that... I went back and forth, confused, on whether to play as myself-Geralt or who I thought Geralt was as a person from other impressions.
I ended up with myself-Geralt because it's hard not to a first time.

Fighting as a warrior- mage- I don't like playing as a Warrior. I don't like playing as a mage. But what I do like is that stategy made a difference, and I'm not certain that can be said in Dragon Age. In Dragon Age, it was simply a matter, for me, of being the right level and having the right equipment. But because DODGE is a thing, running is a thing, parrying is a thing, they give you the time to react to the attacks. Knowing how to use signs was needed. I could attempt to fight things that were higher level than me through the use of dodge and sign usage.  Like... I liked it. I'd play a warrior in DA if it were like this. Nothing can make me enjoy being a DAI mage, though.  But the idea of a warrior mage in DA4 makes me thing of the combination of maybe a staff with blade as a weapon as well as casting spells like Geralt cast Axii, which seemed to involve a timed element (because if they're too close, they'll whack you before you can finish Puppet.) and speaking of Puppet! Perfect use of Blood magic!

Random Small things: 

Voiced Over Summaries of what's been going on so far during loading screens. For someone who isn't binge playing like I do, they get you in the mood and remind you of where you were last time. I still enjoyed them anyway, and liked seeing the new ones I would get as the game progressed.

Good tutorial prologue story that engaged from the first moment.

Being able to light fires outside of torches- not a magical skill.

At first I really liked people who reacted to being bumped into and reacting to my weapon being out. But in the end, I found it annoying, especially in Novigrad. I used the horse A LOT, at canter or gallop, and there is no way to avoid all people without crashing into things. So, I had multiple NPCs throw insults at me the entire game and I just didn't find that pleasant.  Except when I ran into Eternal Fire worshippers. On purpose.

Mount!: A+++++++++++ I love that horse so much. The speed. The upgrades. How Geralt talked about Roach. How the horse was part of mini games. Self PAthing so you can zone out or enjoy the scenery as you wish.  Maybe the Canter in Novigrad was just as fast as Geralt running, but I didn't care, I liked Roach too much. At the beginning, she was my 100% mode of transportation but by the end of the game, the places I had to go were just too damn far apart. I did use Fast Travel at that point when appropriate, but I occasionally just zoned out and rode my loyal ever hungering steed that never dissolved into a black mist.

Shout out to Boats. I could look at a map and decide which mode was faster- feet, horse, boat, or fast travel. 

Thanks to everyone who connected to me in this thread. Thanks for the tips, thanks for the encouragement, and special thanks to olnorton who wrote miniature books to help me understand the backgrounds of the characters I was interacting with.